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Pier Yittorio .

dure/i

l. M:tnfredo Tafuri, "Lavoro l ntc:llettu;tle


e Sviluppo C::~pit:iuico," Comro;tM
2/70 (1970): 2+1- 81. Tbc ftm p;art of rhc:

anicle w;u published as tbc: rhird c.hapter


in Progtrto t Utopia ut)der t bc ti t le
UJdeologi:l e Utopia.'' Tht change of ti de
h:u perhaps comributed to the o,ushadowing of t be theme of i.orellcctuaJ work
in Tafur'$ historical projcct. See
M~nfre<lo Tafuri, Progetto <' Utof~ (Bari:
L:uerza, 197J), 49- 72; Arthituturt an/

Utopia: .J.wvu-gttrdt t1nJ Ct1ftalitt


DNdopJtmlt, tr:ans. B:lrban Luif>ia La

PrnD (Cambridge: MIT Pre~, 1976).


2. Manfr e.do T<~furi, "Per uo.a Critica
dell'Ideologi:! Architeuouica," Crmlrofian o
1 ( 1969) : H-79; rr aru. as "Tow:~.rd a

Cririquc of Arcbitc<tu.nl Ideology," in K.


,Mjhael Kap, ed., ATfhitcc:turt Throry
Sinu 1968 (C:uhbridge: MIT Pre$.5, 1998),
6-J5. As is well known, this an:ele wa$
de\'cloped :lS the book Prdgmo t Utotia.
J. Projw ofcrisis i~ an cxpr~ion often
IUed by Tafuri to idc:mif} tbc: core of 1hc
idea of che projei:t, l'nd o ne that Marco
Bira&hi tus appropriated t o de.scribe the
core ofTafuri's work. See Muco Bir:aghi,
Progmo di crisi ( Mihn: Marinoeti
Editore, ~00)). More re<emly Birag,i
h2J wriuen an css<Jy on Tafu ri'~ idea of
the projec r as a project of c:ri~is, which is
ooe of t he most penefratins :u12lyses of
Tafuri's work. Sec: Ma.rco Bir~i ,
"Tafuri e la eri si, spieg.ui .3gli studenti
dd pnmo anno," in Orlando di Manino,
cd., Manfrrtlo Tajin-i: Oltre 14 stort~
(Naple1: Edizioni Clun, 2009), 19- 26.
fora cricicaJ account ofTafuri'~ ea.l'ly
intellec:t\UI fonnl'tion, a fundamc:ntal
rc.ading is a.lso Giorgio Ciucci, "The
fonnativc: Years," C#sabtllt~ 619-620
( 1994-) : 12- 2). The mon accurate reading
ofTafuri's work available in English i1 in
Aoc hony Vidkr's book, Historitr fi[ tht
lmmtditur Prurnt: ITrN"nring .4rchittctur4/
Mo/umtm (C:unbridgc: MIT Pren,
2008) , tS7-89.

Recontextualizing
Tafuri's Critique
Ofideology
In 1970, Manfredo Tafuri published a long artide titled
"Lavoro Intellettuale e Sviluppo Capitalistico" ("lntellectuaJ
Work and Capitalist Development") in the journal
Contropiano.t The artide followed the publication of his more
famous "Per una Critica dell'Ideologia Architettonica"
("Toward a Cr.itiqu.e of Architectural Ideology,) publishcd
in the same journal in 1969.2 Remarkably, "lntellecrual Work
and Capitalist Developmeot" contains no reference ro architccture proper. Rather the artide is a dense reflection on the
nature of intellectual work itself as seen within the conditions established by the capitalist systt!m of production. If
"Toward a Cririque of Architecrural Idcology'' had a large
criticai reception at the time of its publication, "lntdlectual
Work and Capitalist Developmem" remained in its shadow.
By rcapproaching Tafuri's critique through his arguments
about intellectual work, it is possible to suggest rhat the critique was not only directcd toward architecture and its proj ect, but was also concerned with thc themc of "intellectual
work'' and with culture in generai. For this reason, at this
criticai moment, it is worth the attempt to recuperate Tafuri's
concept of intcllectual work as a major force in his argument
and as rhc reas:on for thc radicalit),. of his critique of architectural ideology as the premiscs of his "project of crisis.''J
Through his intense activity of historicizing the developmcnt of architectural modernity from the Renaissancc to
the 1970s neo-avanrgarde, Manfredo Tafuri was che flrst
inrellecrual in the field of architectural history and criticism
to understand that it was no longer possible for inteUectuals
to address the issue of social and cultura! changes provoked by
capitalist dcvdopment from an out.ride perspective. Indced, for
Tafuri there was no outside position in capitalism, since its
totaliry was constitu.ted by the realiry of "waged labor," which
aJso incorporated the role of the intellectu.al. Conscqucntly,
he understood that a critique of capitalism could only be
produced fi-om. within, from the categories and forms through
which intellectuals were - consciously ot unconsciously 89

culturally mediating the effects of continued capitaHst production or patticipating in its reification. For Tafuri, and for
those who influ~nced his critique, this new condirion meant
that any criticai and politica! discourse needed f1rsr of ali to be
addressed to intellectuals as TPork.ers, rather than to "others,
Cworkers), contradicting the idea that the social and politica!
mandate given to the intellectual could be taken for granted.
To properly understand this shift, Tafuri's critique must
be s~en in th~ originai context in which it was formulated:
the debate that took piace in Italy in the 1960s on intellectual
work per se in relationship to its implied politica! mandate.
REPORMISM AND ITS CRITIQUE

4. "Il Piano del c~pitalc" was che t itlc of

a f\mdamental CS$11)' by Mario Tronti


p ublithed in 1962 in the jourru.l Qp4dm1i
Ro11i. In chi.s essa:y, tbc Roman ph.ilo~o
pher, who would have a scrong influe nce
on T2furi's politica:l analytis of uchitec-

rural and urban lstory, attempted ro


anatrze capitttlisr domination :a,t a V<ast,
iotegral, almosc biopolicical project Uut
extended political sovcrdgnty to ali

aspc-ct'S ofhuman labor. See Mario Tronti,


.. Il P~no del c:apiu.Je," Q.utltftrni Rotti J
( 1962): 4S-7t.

In the 1950s and '60s Italy went through an intense process of


modernization that changed the politica!, social, and cultura!
geography of the country. What happened in the US in the
1930s occurred in the nonhern part of Italy in the 1960s: the
beginning of a Fordist-Taylorist organization of work and
industriai production. This led to a shift from a backyard
capitalism based primarily on accumulation, to a form of
capitalism based on the politics of "waged labor," technological innovation, and the organization of production through
the reorganizarion of the entire spectrum of sociaJ relations.
For this reason, many intellectuals in the early 1960s began
to understand <:apitalism not simply as an unjust process of
circulation and dstribution, but, as Mario Tronti would call
it, as "The Plan of Capital" (a term Tafuri explicitly appropriated inA.rchiucture and Uto;ia): a new cycle in which the
organic link between capitalism and the postwar welfare
state was the new form of capitalist domination.+The most
important politica! effect of this new cycle was the establishment of the first center- lefi government in Italy, in 1963, in
whjch the Italian Socialist Party ( PSI) took active part. The
involvement of the left in the government of a country that
was part of the Atlantic Pact was se~n by many leftisr intellectuals and politica! activists as the sign of capitalism' s
development: it could incorporate as a new social interface
the very forces that had opposed it.
In the second half of the 1950s, following the USSR's 1956
invasion of Hungary and the process of de- Stalinization, the
Italian Socialis.t Party started gradually to withdraw from its
historical alliance with the Communist Party and simultaneously to intensify its politica! relationship with the Christian
De.mocrats. At the basis of this politica! shift was the socialists' belief in the reformability of capitalism toward a rational
and socially sustajnable form of economy. According to rhe
90

S. lt is imporunt ro note due in the c.arly


1960s Tafuri was vcry dose co rhc posirion5 of rcformilm. Hi$ eArfy artide~ and
C$~)'' ctpcei:llly those devotcd co w-ban
pbnning, wcte cle01rfy iafluenced br the
ethos of nformiu sociilisn1. ID those
ycan Tafuri n ili believcd in tbc pos-sibilil')'
of link;ng thc bjscorOU"phic: rcvi5on of
modc:rn$m with a dc$ign approac;h 10 thc
city, :u bis pbnning projec.u and stud.ics
dcvclo~ wich tbc gr oup AUA ( Architeu
Urbani~ti Assodati) dcmoll$tratcs.

Scc

Manfrcdo Tafuri, Giorgio Pic:c:ioato, "La


Citt~ territo rio: Verso uzu nuova d.imerlsionc," C4.f~tbtl/4 Conrinuit4 270 (Dccembcr
1961): 16- 25.
6. Co11UinitJ war. al so tbc cirie of che: journ;~l published by Olivc:ui, to which
Tafuri conu ibutcd sevenl arc-idcs, aud
tbc namc of che publis~ housc affiliatcd with Oliveni'$ center. This publishing house produc:ed onc ofTafuri's fine
book$, a monograph on che: ltalian ucbitect ~d cown pu.nner L udovico Qu.aroni.
Scc Manfrtdo Tafuri, Luiflvi(o Q}t~troni t
l~ rviluPfo Jtll'tJrchittrrur"

Jt~~IUI (Milan:

moitmtl in
Edizioni di Comunit,

196+). Thc associ.:ation of TaJuri with

Comunitt. demorutr:ue~ how his ~ccption


of the critique of ~formi MD develo~d
onl)' i_n tbc latter balf of tbc 1960~.
7. The Oliveui pu ru w..s located at Tvrea,
Picdn1om, wbere Olhvetci promoted a
c:lmpus in which tbc main facili t ics wc re
de,igncd by Iral.an modm1.l~t a~hicecc.s.
The proje<t was putsucd as an attc1np t t o
rcform industriai life with a com.munir:arian spi ri t, and for th is rc~$00 it
:uu:~octed m:l..lly leflist progt'Cssivc iruellectuals wbo wc re hired b)' Oliveui as
"c;ulcuul" producen . Fora stud) oa thc
Olivcui town ia h rea, sce Patrizi:a
Bonifaz.io, Oliwtri cottrllf'l(t: Jlrcbrttrur<'
modtrn4 a I"Vr~a (Milan: Skir3 Editore,
2006).

8. Michelangelo Anronioni's ttlogy L'Ant7rtlml (19$9), La Nottr (1960), and


- is one exa mple o (
a cincmacic decoostruuion of t hcsc:
Dtstrr~ Rono ( 196+)

prcm.ises.

ltalian socialists, rarionally planned capitalisr producrion could


be used as means for social justice if reformed at the level of
workers' welfare. Their concept of economie planning was che
rational and fair management of industriai produccioo
through a vasc and compreheosive organization of a welfare
program. For this reason rhe socialists started to abandon the
notion of class conflict io favor of rhe idea of the reform of
the production system as che scientific management of productive forces. This position led many socialist politicians
and intellecruals to embrace what would becom~ one of
ItaJy's mai n political themes of t h~ 1960s: reformism. As this
ideology was adopted by progressive politics aod by che state,
it became a fundamental pole of attraction for many progressive and liberai intellectuals. To modernize became an
imperative for many leftist politicians and intellectuals, but
aJso a diffuse sensibility that crossed many sectors of culrural
production. Within the wave of thc euphorically rationalist
ethos provoked by reformism, strong int~rest gathered
around issues sue h as new regional planning, che legacy of
social-democratic urbanism, and the role of design in all
aspects of everyday life.S The cultural prototype of this wave
of socialist refonnism was the affinnation of Adriano
Olivetti's "Comunit," 6 an actempt to transform a factory
into a cultura! campus that elevated production as the possibility of a socially sustainable and culturally articulated
community. Olivetti involved not only managers but also
artists, designers, and writers in the work a t his plant.' The
iotent of Olivetti was to demonstrate on the one hand the
intrinsically rational nature of production and on the orher
the possibility of a new social humanism based on industria!
development.8
The new wave of class conflict thar took piace in Italy in
the 1960s started precisely from che criticism of the reformist
ideology that accepted and even idealized production as a
scientific and tthus reformable configuration of development.
Reformism was thus attackcd as the new politica! and cuiturai form of capitalist power over society, as capitalism's
most advanced form of ideology.
The principal opposition ro the reformist ideology of
industriai production carne from a group of leftist militams
affiliared with the joumal Quaderni Roui and who later were
called "t be Operaists." O ne of the mai n rheses of this group,
frst formulateci by Raniero Panzieri, the socialisr activist
an d translaror of Marx, was that the workers should not
only demand socia! reform of the modes of producrion but
also claim political power over them. Panzieri theorized this
91

9. R:u:tiero Panz.ieri, Lucio Libertini,


"Sette tesi ruJ controllo optr-'io," in
Monti" OfrnriiJ {Febru:try 19S8), re publi.shed in Mondo OptrttJo: .R4rttgn4 mtnlilt
Ji ~lititil, ttM~mi11 t cultur-, ~14gilz
IP$1- 196~ (Florence: Luciano landi,
1965), 880-90J.
10. Ranicro Panzicri, "SuJI'uso deUe
macchine nel Nco c:~pitalismo.'' QNJttltrni
Rotti 1 ( 1961): SJ-72.
Il. For an ovcrview on che dcvdopmcnt
of Oper;ajsmo and after, kc Stephen
Wri~;ht, Stmmn: Hr.rwn: Cl.u:s Com~rititm

;, ltAii4n Autonomi.Jr M11rxitm (Piuro


Preu: London, 200J). For :a_n O\erview
on che uri) Opuaismo, and cspcci.ally
on iu mou infl uenri:1l figure$ - Panl:icri
;md Mario Tromi - Ke my Tht Pr6jm DJ
AutoM"f.1: Politia tinti Arrbitfflurt lllithin
tUUI Agt~inst Ct:piulilftl (New York:
Princtton At'Chill!ctunJ Pren, 2008).
12. Bot h Adorno'' wd Bcnjamio's wricUlgl wuc introduced co che lcalun audience b)' cnayi$t and politi0:\1 activ~t
Renato Solmi, who trambtc:d both
Adorno's Minim11 MMtltI and BcD;amin'$
writin&, coUccred in tbc antholog,
Attt.tlur no.,llt. Solmi's litcrary work had
a profound iofluc:nce on h2li:ut cuhure,
noc only bc~uK he ituroduced the topics
and ide3 of the Fratlkfun S<hool, but
aIso for his own imeUc:ctu: commitmenc
to editoria) work as rhe rnolt cnu;~al
point of cont<~ec between politica! a~encr
aod cuhural production. See Tbeodor W.
Adorno, Minima M oTWii: Mttlit11zi~ni
Jrlla l'til offtJ4, tr;ms. Ren~to Sol mi
(1rin: Einaudi, t9S4); Walrer Btnjamin,
.l.ngtllllnovw : S.ggi r framm mti, trans.
Rc:nato Solmi (Turin: Euudi, 1962). Sec:
al ~ Re.nato Solm.i, .41dobiotrt~Jill J()tumtn
tt:n'a: Scrini 19$0-1004 (MaC"c:rata:
Verlurium QuodJibet, 2007). Gyorgy
LuHcs's Dit Sttlt unJ Jit Nnntn (Tiu
s~uJ ni tlx hrm.r) wa~ truubted by che
Operai li acthist and l:uc:I analyst of
posc-Fordism Sergio Bol~na a.nd introduced b)' Franco Fortini. Sec: Gyorgy
Lulic,, L'Animtt t lt fo171'1t ( Milan: Sugar,
196)).
lJ. Tbeodor W. Adorno, "ll sauio come
forma," in Nottttr ltJ lttttnmms
1.94]-1961, vol. 1, ed. E. Dc Angdi.s,
rrao_s. A. ferioli, E. De An&eli' G.
Manzoni (1rin: Einaudi, 1979). See
Theodor W. Adorno, "The F. N)' as
For m," NtJitJ tfl Lirrnuurv, vol. t, rnns.
SbeiT) Weber Nicholsco (New Yor*:
Columbia Uni~:enI)' Press, 1991). "Ocr
Esuy ah Form,'' fnt published itt NtJttn
zur Litrnuur l (Frankfurt a.m Main:
Suhrb mp, 19S8) a.nd lattr in Grlilmmtltt
Srhrifttn Il (Prankfurt am M;ain:
Suhrhmp, 1974), was written bernc:en
t9S4 and 19S8.

k.ind of workecs, power in a fund.amenrai essay a c the very


beginning of ltaJian autonomous Marxism as "workers, concroP' (controllo operaio).9 For the Operaist, workers' conrrol
was the strugg1e against the very essence of production: work,
its organization, its plans, and its leaps forward in tcrms of
technological innovation. This critique of capitalism was
direcred nor only at means of circulation and consumption,
but aiso, and most of all, at methods of production irself, at
whar Panzieri called rhe umachines," the rechno-social apparatus requ.ired to extrapolate surplus value from the whole of
sociai relationships. 10 On che one hand, this cririque was
based on a direct reading of Marx, especially rbe fourth section of che fJist book of Capitai, where the founder of modero com.munism describes severa! phases in the history of
industria! production, and of the Grundrst; and on the other,
on a renewed use of the cririque of ideology, which was ai.med
against all those insdtutions that were preserving the reality
of production as an essential form of capitalisr sovereignry,
such as che state, the unions, and "culrnre, per se.11 The critique of culture, and especially of the progressive leftist culture and its mediation at the service of capitalism,s reformist
strategy, became a fundamental asset of the critique of ideology practiced by the Operaists. A cririque of ideology, on the
one band, advocared a resisrance to reformism, especially the
reform incarnated by progressive forms of culture, and on
che other, attempted to rethink the function of intellectuals
wirhjn che framework of class struggle (the very agents
engaged in che critique).
THE MANDATE OF INTBLLBCTUALS

The effects of capitalist development on cultura! producrion


led many Italian intellecruals to question their poljrical mandate and co rethink the role of the inteUectual in a capitalist
context. It is not by coincidence that in this period a strong
interest in the literary formar of the "criticai essayn appeared.
The social and cultura! changes provoked by the rapid modernization of the country aroused suspicion of traditional
literary and artistic forms in which t be m~diating role of the
author was not questioned. For this reason, the use of the
criticai essay formar was strategie- it was the most legitimate form of cultura! production because of its explicit selfreferentiaiity as a critical fonn. The ltai.ian translation of
three qu.intessential criticai essayists, Gyorgy Lukacs, Walter
Benjamin, and Theodor Adorno, in the 19SOs contributed to
tbe interest in the literary form.u For Adorno, the criticai
essay was the truJy hereticai and anti-instirutional form of
92

H . Onc: of rhc m~t criticai ~ucssmenu


of inrdlcC1ual w ork dur~ rh pcrtod
w;u Luciano Bianciardi's La Yrta agra
(TIH Bitur Lift), a n aurobiographic-al
nove! in which Bi:anciudi, che rranslator
cf Amcric2n 2uthors sue h :u John
Srcinbcck, WilJiam Faulkntr, 1nd Heru')'
Miller, rurntcd t bc: vi.ciuuudc~ of a
)'OtUil; intellectu;al during thc economie
boom cf rhe culy 1960s. Rianciardi, who
workcd for rhc halt:an lefriu publishcr
f:cltrinclli and w:as fircd for low produetivit)', later bcc<~me a crucuJ i~urc for
Lhe rheorisu of eogniti,c labor, such as
Paolo Vtrno, wbo luve dneriLcd
Bianciardi's novcl :u onc o f rhc f rst profound an<~l}'1cS of rhc implie:usons of
eulr ural induury and cosnitive labor. In
a revt:aling F$$<1gC of che novcl, q uotcd
b) Virno, Bi:anciardi n:Occu on rhc difficulty of musur~ tbc produccivc ourp"''
ofintellcccu~l wort. "'Thcre is :an e:uy
mcasuri nl; sti for che w orkcr 3.0d for
thc pcasant, one which is quantit~ri vc:
docs rhc factOI')' produce so many picce s
p<'f hOIU, docs t hc far m yieJd a proft? (n
our profe~iom it Ls diffcr~t . therc are
no q~Untic:ui vc rncasuring $tcks. How
docs one mcasure the ~kill of a pr i<:lt, or
of a joumalisr, or of someone in public
n:lationsl Thm ft'O?It nt'ithtrfrHNu fr~m
~trlltrh, nor muuform. T hcy are ncither
primary nor sccondary. Tcruary is w ha t
rhcy are and wts:&t 's more, r w ould dare
~y . .. c:vc:o four t imcs ~moved. They
n e ncither im trumc nrs of production,
nor drive btlt$ of tran$muion. Thcy are
~ lubricant, :IS thc mosr pure Vaseline.
How canone evalu:ut' a pricsr, a journaiSt, a pubJjc rdaoru pcrson? How C<~ n
one clllcul.. tc: che amount c f f:uth , of
purch:ui n~ desirc. of liha bilit)' that
t hcsc pcople nave trulnaged IO rnuncr
up?" Sc:c Luciano B ian ciard~ Il Lsvor~
mlruralt ( Milan: Fehrioclli, 1957); Paolo
Virno, Tbt Gromm11r of tht Multirutit: For
411 Anii{Jtis of tht' J<ormr of Cont\'mpDrao
Lifo ( Los An~lcs: SemiOtcxt(e), '2004), S7.
IS. Pra nco Forriru, Ytrifit'tt Jri ~"ri:
Stritri di mh'n: t di irtru~ion1 lttttrarit (Il
Sawarorc, t96S).
16. See Franoisc Vcry in conveN<~ri oo
with MU'Ifrcdo T:afuri, in Ct~t.btlld
619-620 ( 1994-): J6. Evcn in thc carly
1990$, du ring his vcl)' last scmin:~ rs,
which l h:ad the opportuniry ro auc:cd,
:ah.sri mc:ntioned Fortinis book as a ,cry
smporuuu c vem in the ddinition of hi5
criticaJ ~ppi'Oaeb to hinol) lt 1s importlnt ro note that :at th:at cime Tafuri was
ve r)' reluctant ro ralk about bis e:arly
work and carlicr n:fc:rc:ncc1, yct hc
would m li cncour~e scudenu t o rcad
Fo rtini'' "Astuti come Colombe.''

mediating the concept of public tnlth. As be wrore in "The


Essay as Form," che essay is the most radica! dialectical form
because of its explicitly mediated character. By making
explicit its artifcial construction, its self-reflexive editoria!
nature acts from within the reified sphere of cultura! production in which culture is administered as an industry.JJ
For this reason, the essay, which embodies the most artificially coostructed and mediated form of writing, has the
inhcrent possibility to become the ultimate form of criticism.
According to Adorno, the function of the criticai cssay, by
vinue of its format, enabled a theoretical interrogation of the
way culture itself was produced and reified. Fora philosopher,
an artist, a f.mmaker, a writer, or a scientist, adopting the
form of the criticai essay challenges intellecrual wor.k by
transgressing the way culture was mana.ged as a system of
production in terms of its Sfecia/izationr.H From the beginning
of bis career, Tafuri, more than any other archirectural historian before him, embraced the form of the essay within
chis tradition, leadiug back to perhaps Mootaigne. Even in his
early essays and articles Tafuri always problematized his
criticai perspectivc, mak.ing the essay not only a discourse on
a particular objccr but also on the "reflexive" subject itself,
on the "author as producer," to use Benjamin's words. This
sclf-interrogarive lirerary form, in which the work is criticai
not rhrough its message bue through its medium and its construction, was Tafuri's preferred methodology for leveling a
fundamental critique of tbe architectural culture of che cime,
a culture that was more anxious to deliver statements rban
co assess its own instrumentality. But before taking up this
specific critique, it is important to mention an intellecrual who
would have a great influence on Tafuri's critique of ideology.
Between the 1950s and 1960s in ltaly, the intellecrual
who, more t han any other, invested in the essay as the most
radica! form of critiquc of intellectual work in a capitalist
sociery was Franco Fortini. A poet and prominent com.munist
intellectual, and for a short period dose to che Operaists,
Fortini published his most important book, Yenfica dei poteri
(rerification of the PoTPerr), in 196S.1S lt is interesting to note
that this aothology of essays was on severa! occasions mentioned by Tafuri as fundamemal to his intellecrual formation.16 The theme of the book was the relationship between
culture, iotellecmal work, and capitalist development.
Fortini analyzcd this relationship by questioniug what he
ddned as the problem of the "inrellectual's mandate" - that
is, how the role of intellectual work was determined by class
confljcc in capitalist development. According to Fortini,
93

17. Fortini, "Auuri come colombe,'' in


Ytrifica Jti pmri, 68-88.

within advanced capitalism, t be mandate of progressive


intellectuals could no longer be defined by the theme of antifascism. In other words, the criticai function of intellectuais
could not be justi.fied by a critique of the dirtct repression of
freedom. The intellectual's role no longer involved advancing the problem of the freedom of speech, but rather in
addressing the problem of intellectual freedom as a new ideologica! form within the reality of c~pitalist development.
The most famous essay in the anthology, "Astuti come
colombe" ("Cunrung as Doves"), focused on the critique of
cultura! ideology as the la.t ter was produced by progressive
culture.17 Its main thesis not only condensed the Italian
debate about the role of intellectual work within capitaiisr
development but also provided Tafuri the criticai blueprint
for his critique of architecturai ideo1ogy. "Astuti come
Colombe" was originaUy published in 1962 in the cultura!
journal Il Menab, directed by Italo Calvino and Elio
Vittorini, in an issue devoted to the theme of culture and
industriai work. The issue aiso featured essays by Calvino
and Umberto Eco, among others. For these leftists and "progressive" intellectuals, the factory became the new cultura!
epicenter of Hterary and artistic experimental practices. This
new sensibility, which mixed socialist reformism and anistic
experimentationt gave imperus to the avant-garde revival in
1taly, the mosr important manifestatioo of which was Eco's
Gruppo 63. Avant-garde techniques such as collage, estrangement, and technological experiment.ation became devices
through which the members of Gruppo 63 attempted to sublimare the effects of industrialization on social relationships.
Fortini directed his critique at this ideologica! use of cultural
experimentation in order to mediate (and mystify) the
effects of production on both sociery and intellecrual work.
The two poles that defmed Fortini's critique were an analysis
of the politica! economy of intellectual work and an analysis
of its aesthetic manifestation. Fortini used politica! economy
as a tool to describe the way capitalist affirmation within
society manifested itself through systematic cultura! selfdeception. For him, thls self-deception was often achieved by
capitalism's instrumentaiization of a progressive and socially
committed culture. The use of the aesthetic was a way to
trust artworks not only as the products of an author but also
as artifacts t hat revealed in the concreteness of the object the
sensual features of capitalist integration. Drawing on politica! economy and aesthetics, Fortini constructed a critique
that was neither aimed at a rational reform of capitalist
development nor at a romantic resistance to the effects of
94-

18. ~nfredo Tafri, TNN"i~ r mri4


Jtll'arcbitttturtl. ~i: Lat~rT.;~, 1968).
19. Ibid., 161-94.

such development. His main objecrive was to demonstrate


how capitalist development was the source of a number of
ideologica! manifestations that not so much represented
bourgeois power as satisfied rhe good conscience of progressive intellectuals. Facing such an extreme level of cuJrural
mystification, in which modernization was reformism and
reformism was the new progressive face of capitalist domi nation, Fortini)s conception of being criticai involved
becoming "cunning as doves and innocenr as foxes" - rhar is,
to constantly adjust the terms of criticism to rhe standard of
the cunning of capitalist ideology and not to surrender to the
easy narcissism of good intentions typical of reformist
approaches. Moreovcr, for Fortini it was precisely a criticai
anaJysis of the seemingly most genuine attempts of social
reform advanced by lefrisr movemems and institutions that
often revealed the true features of capitalisr domination.
Tafuri's critique of ideology took form from these premises. Before it would be applied to imcllecmal work in generai,
Tafuri's critique, as formulated in his 1968 book Teorie e storia dell'architettura, focused on rhe way "rheories" of architecrure attempted to render the idea of modernity in rerms
ofprogress. 18 His critique consisted in showing how such a
hisrorical perspective was achieved by systematically masking the very cause of such progress, meaning the conrinuous
state of culruraJ crisis provoked by the devdopmem of modern culture. Tafuri first applied the critique of ideology to
those traditions within historiography tbat had deliberately
attempted to justify modern and contemporary architecture
on the basis of its reformist origin and historical mandate.
Tafuri especially referred ro what he defined as ccoperative
history," a kind of history written with the specific, ideologica! goal to legitimize the tradition of modern architecture. 19
Among the proragonists of operative hisrory, Tafuri placed
almost all the major historians of modern architecture,
including Nikolaus Pevsner, Sigfried Gied.io.n, and Bruno
Zevi. In che context of the critique of reformism elaborated
by Panzieri and Fortini, it is clear that the object of Tafuri's
critique was no,t so much (or not only) the historical deformations made by tbese historians in order to fit architecturaJ
hisrory into modern architects' agendas. What Tafuri rcally
criticized was the ideology of reformism implicit in operative history, its pretension to solve the contradictions left
opcn by the pas,t toward a coherent agenda for che future. By
instrumentalizing history as a source of legitimacy, operative
hisrory was no t only reconfiguring rhe past to sui t present
conditions, but also separating historical developments from

95

their related contradictions and crises. By editing out these


contradictions, operative history helped to render as almost
natura/ the politica! forces that shaped historical processes.
Though Tafuri's initial critique of o~rative history was nota
class critique, the radica! antireformism emerging from his
book Theoriet and Htory led Operaist intellectuals such as
Alberto Asor Rosa and Massimo Cacciari to invite Tafuri to
contribute to their journal Contropiano. Tafuri's contribution
coincided with the second ye.a.r of his tenure at the IUAV
(Istituto Universitario di Arcltettura di Venezia), and his
contribution to Contropiano was expected to define the
approa,ch of bis newly fouoded Istituto di Storia and the possibility of the aoti-reformist critique of ideology within tbe
discipLine of a.rchitecture and urban planning.
!NTELLECTUAL WORK AND CAPlTALIST DEVELOPMENT

20. Tbc "critique of ideology" wu reintroduced and reformuhccd m thc 1960s


by :Mario Tronti as a crilique noc w mucb
of capicalilm per se, but a~ a ctiquc of
the way thc workin~-cl:u.s mo,unent
iudf was often che embod.imcnr of values
d.icutc:d by capiralist devdopmcm. Tbc
cririquc of idc:ology must be undemood
as a critique of che left itself. Tafuri d ari
fed this we of the notion of a critique of
ideolo&)' w ben he wTotc: "Por us [a) critique of idc:o)ogy was a cridque of thc lefr.
M) owo prognm was to dc:vc:lop a critiquc: of thc: ideolof;i~J rhou~hr rhat h:u
pervade<! arthiu:tur<~l hiStory, an history,
;md history in &<:ner::~l. ... Olle should
:atways address che critique of idcolog>
rowards his or hcr own ideology, not rhc:
ideology of bi$ or hc:r enemy. Wha t n eec
to be dc ideologized is precisely che cuiturai context for which one lghu.''
M;mfredo T::~furi, ''u Storta come pro&etto,"' Jntc:rview by Luit:a Pasr.c:rini for
the Art RiStory Documentuion Projcct
( Los An&des: Tbc Getry Ccocer for the
H$10 1")' of Art and Hununicies, 1990, 44
( m)' tr.u\sl:uion). Por :w c:dited ' 'ersion
of thil inrerview, scc Luisa Passerini,
" Hiscory u Projecr," ANY2)/26, &ing
MtlfrtJq Tdfllri (2000). The interview
took puce in Rome in Fc:bruary-Ma.rch
1992. Fora grneral un<knundtng of che:
conc:c:pc of the c:titiquc: of ideology as it
was devd oped by the Operaim, sc:c
Mario Tront~ Optni t capirait (Tu.rio:
Einaudi, 1966).
21. M:usimo Caeciari, "Sull:t t>Wc:si del
pensiero ncs:uivo," C4ntropi4nq t (1969):
H1- 201.

The Marxist journal Contropiano, published between 1968 and


1971, w as conceived by its editors as the successor to the
Operaist joumal Cfa,u e Operai.a. In comparison to the earlier
journal, Contropiano was more essayistic and less devoted ro
direct political intervention. Its ed.itors sought to construct a
working-class culture by engaging with the most advanced
themes of the struggle, such as tbe critique of socialist
reformism. Accord.ing to the eclitors (who, for the ft.rst issues,
included Antonio Negri), the most advanced level of class
struggle was what tbey called the "cunning of ideology,"
which they saw as the subde and self-deceptive cultura! means
through wbich capitalism insinuated itself into the institutions of the worJcing-class movemenc.lo Yet this radica! critique of ideology was intended t o be not an end in itself but
the premise to a politica! counterplan - the Contropiano - to
the plan of the capita!. For the editors the counterplan would
consist in the working-class appropriation of the most
advanced bourgeois culture within modernity, especially che
bourgeois intellectual tradition that Cacciari defined as
"negative thought."ll For Cacciari, the tradition of negative
thought consisted in a line that ran through che work of
thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and Max W eber.
According to Cacciari, these thinkers showed how bourgeois
mentality bad already accepted the unresolvable crisis of values brought on by the development of modernity (and capitalism), and made of that acceptance not a passive position
but an effective will to power over capitalist development
itself. For the editors of Contropiano, what was to be done was
a reinvention of such a form of power - the negative
tbought - as working-class politica! culture. This inevitably
96

2.2. Tnis neg~r ive tradition is in many


ways rd ated to tht midd.Je pas.u~
throu&h nihiliim prophesized by
NittzKht en route ro a t rU~svalu:uion of
v~ue5. But it ;, aho not3bl r ne&"tivt,
atsd requir-tJ iu own t \'tntual ne~ation .
2J. lt is ncver dear if tbest "avant-garde"
movcmcots u e simpty :~.pproprutcd or in
fact prcuge anothcr maneuver by capitai
on it1 path of fun ber Bppropriation and
subjugation. In termt of technological
avant-gardu, ir is always a case of che
larter. In termJ of form of subjcetivi:ution, it is not w dcar.

meant an extreme critique of leftist culture itself an d especially of how leftist progressive resistance t o and reform of
capitalism had inevitably fallen iato the hands of the capitalists as the most effective weapons of dominance over rhe
working class. 22 It is precisely withi n this context t ha. t Tafuri
constructed his critiquc of architectural ideology. If Fortini
showed Tafuri how to resist the temptation of reformism,
the editoria! project of Contropiano provided Tafuri with the
terms in which antireform.ism could be translated back into
a dass critique. Within th.is conte.xt, Tafuri wrote "Toward a
Critique of Architectural Ideology" with the aim of rracing
the ideologica! connotations of the origin of modern architecture. Accord.ing to Tafuri, modern architecture, and especially its avant-garde momcnts, could have been described as
the ideologica! prefigurations of the upcoming effects of capiralist dcvdopment. In so doing, modern.ist architectural culture had a definitive role in natura/izing tbese effecu and
making them socially and culturally accepta.ble.2J
The more architectural culture raised the bar of radical
experimentation, the more its cultural attributes contributed
to the following cycle of capitalist developmcnt. This was
and remains the vicious circle. And yet once a cycle of experimentation was surpassed by a newer cycle of development,
then its architecrural and urban products wcre left behind as
"form without utopia" - that is, a form devoid of any
reformist urgency. This was particula.rly true in "technological" advances in materials and systems, the engine driving
Fordism, and what later bccame an excuse for innovation. In
this latter stage, according to Tafuri, architecture was simply
a useless object for capitalist development, and not evcn its
"utopian" idc:ological weapon. From his anaJysis, Tafuri concluded that in terms of class stn1ggle it was useless to work
on newer projects and plans. What was needed instead was to
radically rethink the role of the architcct and the planner as
an inrellectual -r~orlur. This was intended to shift the critiquc
of ideology from the architectural and urban project to the
form of intellectual work itself. In "Intdlectual Work and
Capitalist Developmcnt," publishcd a few months after
"Toward a Crir:ique of Architectural Ideology," Tafuri
attempted to expand the critique of ideology at this level of
analysis. He argued that in order to go beyond tbc ideologica!
understanding of inrellectual work, it was necessary to
defme the link between the cycles of capitalist development,
the economie reorganization that each cycle imposed on thc
division of labor, and the ideological mediations produced by
intellectuals. For Tafuri, the most crucial mediation pro97

duced by intellectuals in the frst half of the 20th century


elaborated the established middle-class acceptance of the
fundamentally irrational form of capitalist devdopment. If
socialism and reformism obstinately maintained the intrinsic
racionality of capitalism Conce under the governanee of progressive politics), the most advanced bourgeois theorisrs,
such as John Maynard Keynes, understood that the only way
to govern capitalism was to make its fundamental irrationality productive. This potentially productive irrationality was
the working class's rebeJlious initiative, which, by constantly
threatening capitalism, forced capitalism to readapt and
adjust its terms of organizacion. Facing such a dynamic
process, and especially after the great crisis of 1929, capitalists understood that economie development was not only a
matter of scientilfc management, but also of politica! initiative - that is, the wi// to pfJ'Wer over development itself. Por
Tafuri, intellecruals such as Weber, Keynes, and Peter
Schumpeter understood that the will to power over capitalist
development engaged the positive side of capitalism Ceconomie devdopment), together with the negative side (dass
struggle), by accepting the negative force not as a collateral
effect of development but as its most powerful trigger.
For Tafuri, this productive way of dealing with crisis
was the most remarkable achievement of bourgeois thought
because it was no longer based on idealism, but on the principle of crisis used as a dynamic means for development and
power. Following Cacciari's model of negative thought,
Tafuri identified Weber's valuc crisis as the core of modern
politics and the most effective answer to the consequences of
capitalist development. Through the example of Weber,
Tafuri claimed that within the permanent cultura! and politica! instabiliry provokcd by capitalism, intellectual work
could only survive by rejecting any a priori (and thus ideologica!) position, accepting the radical de-sacralizarion of its
status and means of production. l t is for this reason that
those in the field of architecture who read Tafuri outside of
the specifc cultura! and political project in which he formulated his critique of ideology concluded that Tafuri's analysis
could only lead ro a "death of architecture." By recontextualizing Tafuri's critique (and by understanding that it was
carried out within a project where the possible relationships
between cultura! disciplines and class struggle were at stake,
not the architectural discipline itself), it is possible to understand how the conclusion that architectural critics reached
about Tafuri's criticai project was wrong (or at least prema ture). Actually, the passionate precision within which he
98

attempt~d to come to terms with the problem of intellecmal

24-. This is ~vid~ot io tbe incro<iuccion of


bjs lm book. Sce Millfre<io T:~fhri, ''A
SeaKh for P~r~digms: Project, Truth,
Anifces,' ' in /nttrprtting tht R~114is:santt:
Printts, Cititt, .Arcbiurtr, tram. Danicl
Sherc:r (New Haven: Yale Unjve Nity
Prc:H, 2006). This cn ay ~n be aSJ\ll'l'led
t o be che $Umnl2 of ali Tafuri's w ork on
history, a.nd mues cleu dut, tho~h
free of :lny "opcr.ttive'' pretentions, bis
interesc in the Rcnai.~ance was aho
moti,;ncd by che u.rgcnc)' t o clarify the
origiJU of contemporary problems.
Moreover, i.t is imponant to nress that

Td uri's iJHerest in t be Renaissance w.u


present throughom hi' areer. Tbis is
dcmonstraccd by many e$.$a)~ oo che sub
jcct and by boo.k.s publi.shed u euly u
t be 1960s on subjects 1uch u :~.rc.h.itecrurc
tn tbc :age of humanhm, lWinncrist
arcb.itecrurc, .md che arcbiccctun: of
Jacopo San5o,ino - books thit have ofte n
been ovcrfooktd in arul)-ses of Tafuri's
work. ~e Mulfrcdo T:~.furi,
L'uchittttur4 Jt/J' uwurntsill'l~ ( Bari:
Laterza, 1969); L'Arrhittttlml J(/
MtmiumD tul Cin1111tcmt~ rNrtJftfJ
( Ronu: Officina Edizioni, t966)iftiMjO
S12movino t /idrchitttturtl titl C!1fNtnctnto
s l'tntzi4 ( Padua: Marsilio, 1969).

work within capitalist developrnent sbowed that rh~ task. for


intell~ctuals , and for "architects as intellectual workers,"
was very clear. According to Tafuri, what was needed was to
seriously Cre)historicize the processes and forms through
which the content of intellectual work was always structurally link.ed with the conditions posed by the evolucion of
possible politicaJ economies. Moreover, in light of this
understanding of Tafuri's hlstorical project, it becomes clear
how his interest in the Renaissance was not at alla "retreat"
from contemporary history, as many architectural historians
maintain, but a search for the origin of the strategie links
between the practice of architecture as intellectual work and
t be development of power structures that would provide the
cultural basis for capitalist development. 2-4
For this reason, Tafuri, like Fortini, saw in rhe activity
of historical inquiry Cwhich the avant-gardes always rejected
as a precondition of their projects) the most powerful tool
for interrogating the effects of capitalist development on
intellectual agency. To historicize intellectual mentalities
meant that the politica! site of struggle was the intellecrual
work itself in terms of ics qualifications, its ways of being
specialized, and the way, at every cycle of production, capitalism always defined a new mandate for the social rol~ of
intellecruals. For Tafuri, such an analysis was supposed to
provide a nonideological form of understanding the possibilities for Cincellectual) action. In this sense it is interesting to
note how, today, Tafuri's reflections come unexpectedly Cand
paradoxically) very dose to, on the one band, the neo-liberai
slogans such as "creative workHand "creative class," and, on
the other, to the post-Operaist discussions about cognitive
work as the center of post-Fordist modes of production. But
while these positions completely absorbed the productive
starus of knowledge, Tafuri focused attention on the pressure.
points in intellectual culture within capitalist developmcnt.
This problematization was so radica! that we might conclude
that the true ai m of Tafuri 's critique was not so much t ha t of
the TPill topower, in the traditional form of party politics
Cwhich, in the end, remained the goal of the editors of
Contropiano), but more a wil/ to understand, a will to deeply
disentangle the historical processes through which intellectual subjectivity was made. But Tafuri also used the wili to
understand as the antidote to the architect's and the critic's
narcissism of good imemions, not only in the architectural
"boudoir," but also in the social activism of so-called progressive architects - many present today - who in fighting
99

the world never question rhe mandare of rheir acrions. Above


ali, this 1PII to understand, which Tafuri never expecred t o be
satisfied, was only used as a trigger for his research, and it
was implicitly aimed at what Fortini would bave called the
recuperation of the totalil)of the intdlccr, or, in orher
words, the possibility of transgressing thc disciplinary specializations and expertise imposed by the politica} economy
of neo-capiralist work and production. Tafuri demonsrrared
this transgression not in direct statements about imerdisciplinarity or transdisciplinarity (two forms of intellectual
work that he would have seen as the most advanccd forms of
idcological mystification within which capitalism administers
culrural production) but by the wide spectrum of his analyses,
which combined politics, aestherics, political economy, and
architecrure iato one critica/ project aimed at defning the
tota/ity of his Beruf as inrelleccual.

PIER VITTORIO URBLI t S AN ARCHI TSCT. H B JS CO POUNDBR OP TilB


COLLBCTIV"E DOOMA/ 0P'PtCE ANO
TEACH'ES AT THB BEIU.AG.B INSTJTUTE
IN RoTTEllDAM.

100

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